Processing of raw onions into the form of packaged, frozen batter-coated onion rings has been carried out commercially for a number of years. In general, such processes include the steps of peeling and slicing the onions, separating the slices into rings, coating the rings with batter, setting the batter as by partial frying (par-frying or flash frying), and freezing either before or after packaging. The step of coating of the rings with batter generally includes applying a liquid batter mixture followed by application of a dry breading mixture and the sequence may be repeated several times. The term natural onion rings is generally used to distinguish these products from processed onion rings made from an extruded onion mix.
Examples of known natural onion-ring processing techniques are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,976,798, 3,208,851, 3,169,069, 3,078,172 and 2,771,370.
The applicants are not aware of any prior technique for producing discrete coated natural onion pieces of finite length.